how to read USB port

[chomeur]

I'm trying to read the USB 2.0 port on the Sheevaplug using the collectd application running on the Sheevaplug itself. I've attached a device (The Energy Detective) to the USB 2.0 port but nothing shows up in /dev. I was expecting to get /dev/ttyUSB1 (or /dev/ttyUSB2) or something but get nothing. dmesg shows the following when I plug in the device:

usb 1-1: new full speed USB device using ehci_marvell and address 2
usb 1-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

So something is happening but it seems like there is no driver on the Sheevaplug for recognizing the usbserial chip in the Energy Detective.

Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

[fragfutter]

check what is connected to your USB bus with "lsusb -v". Check/Google if those devices are supported by your kernel (uname -a). If both is true you might miss an udev rule to create interfaces, but i would guess you kernel has no clue about energy detective (or the chipset used on it).

[chomeur]

OK, I'm pretty much a newbie. Hold my hand.

For starters: how do I get lsusb?

root@debian:~# apt-get install lsusb
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
E: Couldn't find package lsusb

[AutoStatic]

lsusb should be installed by default AFAIK. What's the output of lsusb -v ?

[chomeur]

My Sheevaplug doesn't seem to have lsusb:

root@debian:~# echo $PATH
/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games

root@debian:~# lsusb -v
-bash: lsusb: command not found

[fragfutter]

search it: apt-cache search lsusb
install it: apt-get install usbutils

[tbm]

lsusb is in the usbutils package.

[AutoStatic]

Oops, didn't know that. Thought it was installed by default.

[CqCn]

search it: apt-cache search lsusb
install it: apt-get install usbutils

This was a useful tip for me too.  Thank you fragfutter.

[CqCn]

Is there a way to determine from any of the usb tools how much current a particular device or usb tree is drawing (not just the max permitted)?

[chomeur]

Getting back to the original topic, I found out that the SheevaPlug does not come with a module to handle USB devices that use a FTDI chip to do usbserial communication (see Topic: FTDI Device on the Sheeva). The easiest solution is to install one of cbxbiker61's prebuilt  kernels with the required module (see http://plugcomputer.org/plugwiki/index.php/Install_Prebuilt_Kernels_From_sheeva.with-linux.com on how to do that).

I was able to update my kernel and I now see /dev/ttyUSB0 when I connect the Energy Detective. Now I'm trying to get collectd to read it.

Thanks for everyone's help.